One-Blue, LLC, a company that holds licensing patents from licensors essential to Blu-ray Disc (BD) products, will reduce most of its royalty rates by 20% as of April 1, 2017.

Because BD products are backwards compatible, the One-Blue license programs for BD products include patents that are essential to any of the optical standards, namely the BD, DVD and CD standards. With this royalty reduction, One-Blue responds to the current and continuing expiration of patents relating to the DVD standards. The 20% reduction of royalty rates will cover the One-Blue license programs for the majority of BD products, including players, recorders, drives, PCs and software. The One-Blue royalty rate for a BD player, for example, will decrease from US $ 9 to US $ 7.20 and the royalty rate for a BD recorder from US $ 12 to US $ 9.60 for shipments of licensed products occurring on or after April 1, 2017.

One-Blue is currently working to establish a licensing program for Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc (UHD-BD) products, which is expected to be ready in the coming months.